Early Childhood Care & Universal Education Are Keys to Gender Equality – UNICEF
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: November 6, 2006
Dr. Rima Salah, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director. “Huge steps can be made to
empower girls if we begin the movement for gender equality in those first years
of a child’s life.”
around the world are girls, a startling statistic that will have negative
repercussions on an entire generation.
Date: 13 Nov 2006
UNICEF: Early Childhood Care Key to Gender Equality
CAIRO, 13 November
2006 – UNICEF today called on governments and others committed to universal
education and gender equality to remember that the earliest years are the most
critical for children’s development. If many of the Millennium Development Goals
are to be reached, the children’s agency warned, the cycle of negative gender
stereotypes must be broken earlier in a child’s life rather than later.
“Gender equality must be addressed right from the beginning of life,” said
Dr. Rima Salah, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director. “Huge steps can be made to
empower girls if we begin the movement for gender equality in those first years
of a child’s life.”
Dr. Salah’s comments came at the closing of the United Nations Girls’
Education Initiative (UNGEI) partnership meeting in Cairo. Members of UNGEI
include representatives from several UN agencies, donor governments and
non-governmental organizations that have come together to work toward gender
equality in education.
The majority of the estimated 115 million children not attending school
around the world are girls, a startling statistic that will have negative
repercussions on an entire generation.
Girls who are kept out of schools are not only denied their own right to
education, but if they later become mothers, they are more likely to raise
children who remain uneducated, unvaccinated and more likely to contract
HIV/AIDS, the children’s agency emphasized at a meeting here.
Universal primary education for all boys and girls is one of eight time-bound
Millennium Development Goals endorsed by the international community. It is
closely linked to the goal to promote gender equality and the empowerment of
women. Interconnected with the six other goals, empowering girls and women, in
and out of school, is clearly linked to global development and achieving the MDG
targets by 2015.
The theme of the UNGEI meeting, “Gender and Early Childhood Care and
Education,” placed particular emphasis on supporting families and gender-focused
policies and scaling up of quality early childhood care programmes. Quality
programmes focus on well-trained teachers, well-informed parents, and
child-centered community care.
Furthermore, by covering pre-school and parenting techniques to school
nutrition and breastfeeding advice, these programmes are particularly beneficial
to the children who need them the most: girls living in poverty. Girl children
may be required to care for younger siblings – a responsibility that prevents
them from getting an education of their own. Early childhood care programmes are
key in closing this discrimination gap. When younger siblings are in pre-school
programmes, their older sisters are free to pursue their own studies. And by
setting children out early on the road to learning, early childhood education
can be instrumental in breaking the cycle of poverty and preparing children for
success in school.
It is particularly fitting that the UNGEI meeting should take place in Egypt,
which — with the leadership of First Lady H.E. Suzanne Mubarak, has been an
early advocate for ensuring quality education to girls. Egypt unveiled a Girls’
Education Initiative in 2000 under Mrs. Mubarak’s guidance. Girls’ education was
designated as Egypt’s top development priority in 2000; by 2007, the government
has pledged to close the gender gap Egypt’s schools.
“What young children learn now and what happens to them now will influence
them for the rest of their life,” said Erma Manoncourt, UNICEF’s Representative
in Egypt. “The earliest years are the most determinant of the child’s
psychosocial and cognitive development.”
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